If I were to choose between Julia Child's The Way to Cook and Martha Stewart's Cooking School, which one would be more valuable in rounding out my cooking skills? I don't yet have any book by these authors. I hope some of you are familiar with these books.

I own both of these books & Julia Child's "The Way To Cook" is my hands down favorite. My copy is falling apart I've used it so often, & her "Steam Roasted Goose with Port Wine Gravy" has been our traditional Xmas dinner since the day the book first came out. What's particularly nice about it is that it will first give a basic "master" recipe, & then follow that with several building-block variations to turn that one recipe into several completely different meals. Lots of room for easy experimentation & lots of fun without sacrificing traditional concepts.

Martha's book is nice (I was gifted with a copy for Xmas), but just isn't in the same league as Julia's. In addition, you have to be careful with Martha's cookbooks (I have nearly all of them), as the recipes don't always cook true & you have to always be at the ready to make adjustments. (And this isn't only my opinion - it's been a well-known fact for years re: her books.)

IMHO you can learn something from every single cookbook out there! The best way to decide it to glance through both - - see which one suits you better. Sometimes it's simply in the layout of the book that makes things easier to understand and comprehend. See who has the best fundamental recipes. When I think of fundamentals my "go to" seems to end up Julia, also. I think that's the way our brains work. She was our teacher back when we were just learning and has been embedded in our minds as the go to person.